With not a lot coming out of Aston Villa to write about and most of the players either out injured or away on international duty we're starting our countdown to the Birmingham City clash.

Fingers crossed David O'Leary should have Ridgewell, Hughes, Phillips and Baros fit for the match and there is even talk that Gavin McCann will be available.

Damian is predicting a Villa win for this but I'm going to say it will be a draw and a lucky one for Blues.

David O'Leary will have the vast majority of his players available to him and he's brought these players in because he knows they can play in a specific formation that we can all moan about but none of us actually know what it is.

The introduction of James Milner on the right has provided the team with another attacking option and if we could just start to see the best of Berger next week I'm sure we're going to see a lot of chances created and a very attacking style from David O'Leary's team.

Critical to the match is going to be Kevin Phillips and Milan Baros.

I'm not sure about this but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Phillips has a great record for scoring local derbies from his time at Sunderland and Southampton so I'm hoping he's fit and ready to continue with his record.

Baros is an excellent striker and will create chances and take them - a lot of the criticism targeted at O'Leary as of late is unfair and I think when we see him in a position to pick a starting eleven from a fully fit squad we're going to see different results and Aston Villa moving up the table.

I may think it's going to be a draw on the 16th October but you never know, we might just scrape all three points. I just can't see us losing.

What are your thoughts about the Blues match? Email kevin@astonvilla.biz